IU South Bend students getting realistic training using x-rays

SOUTH BEND, IN (WSBT) — The healthcare worker shortage is getting worse.

A new simulation center at IU South Bend is training the next generation of nurses and radiologic technologist.

The $10 million renovation project is now complete, and students are preparing for their future as frontline healthcare workers in a realistic and state-of-the-art setting which also includes an energized lab where radiologic imaging students can take real x-ray images.

By the end of this school year, current IU South Bend senior, Alex Toth will be a radiologic technologist.

“I have always been interested in being in the medical field,” explains Toth who was an EMT while she was in high school at Oregan-Davis High School.

Now, Toth is a student at IU South Bend.

“I really enjoyed being fast paced so go, go, go, all the time and so being in x-ray is similar to being in emergency medicine because we are constantly go, go, go. Everyone is always needing an x-ray or needing something in radiology so I really enjoy that,” says Toth.

Toth is already taking x-rays in clinicals and now, on campus.

“I think every student when they take their first expose you think for a second, did I really just do that? Did a really just take my first x-ray ever? It is very exciting, but it is also nerve wracking because it is harmful to patients and you have to be very specialized on what you are doing and making sure you are doing it correctly,” says Toth.

Now, current students like Toth and brand new students at IU South Bend will get to use realistic, state of the art and energized equipment to train for their real-world future jobs.

“So excited. We can’t believe we have this here. We’ve been working on this for so long,” says Maryann Oake, the Program Director and Clinical Associate Professor of Radiologic Sciences at IU South Bend.

Oake is talking about the Dwyer Healthcare Simulation Center.

It is a $10 million dollar training and simulation center on the campus of IU South Bend.

It will allow future nurses and radiologic technologist to get realistic, hands-on training in their specialized fields.

“They get to practice all those really tough skills here. Those patient care skills, working with radiation, making those mistakes here before we go into the community and image real patients,” says Oake of the radiologic technology area of the new simulation center.

Prior to the completion of the Dwyer Healthcare Simulation Center, the college did not have an energized radiologic lab.

“The equipment we had before was not energized. That means it wouldn’t emit x-rays, so the students just had to practice imaging each other, but they couldn’t actually take the exposure. Now they are able to take the exposure, use live x-rays, and then analyze and evaluate their images,” says Oake.

WSBT 22 cameras were there as Toth and other students practiced taking real x-ray images of a mannequin, or a phantom, as they are called by radiologic technologists.

“So this is an example of a knee x-ray we can take in our new labs. So we are actually able to position the patient and we can see the outcome of the image after we take it. That way we can improve our positioning based on how the image comes out,” says Toth as she showed WSBT cameras an image she had just taken.

Here, where the patient is mostly synthetic, the students are allowed to make mistakes and learn from them.

“You want the confidence of the staff working in a hospital or the technologist knowing exactly what they are doing so they are not hurting the patient, they know what anatomy they need to cover, they know what the physician wants,” says Oake, “That is what we really want to teach our students to develop those skills, develop those problem solving skills, critical thinking skills.”

And, Oak says, the safety knowledge.

“There is no safe dose of ionizing radiation. Ionizing radiation is harmful to the body so what we want to do is minimize the patient dose to the best of our ability,” says Toth, “The more exposures you take, the more radiation dose to the patients. They are able to realize their mistakes here so when they go into the clinical sight, they aren’t going to take as many exposures, and realize, I know how to correct this before taking the image. So it’s really crucial for radiation safety and patient safety.”

The walls and windows at the simulation center are lead-lined and the students wear devices to monitor their radiation levels.

The radiologic technology area is just half of what the new center will entail.

Students who are training to become nurses will also be training, taking classes and doing simulations inside Dwyer Healthcare Simulation Center.

WSBT 22 watched in November of 2023 as nursing students took part in a nursing simulation.

At that time, the simulation took place in an older, smaller and less realistic facility on campus.

The former facility had one simulation room.

The new Dwyer Healthcare Simulation Center has four, much larger, more realistic nursing simulation rooms and other areas to help nurses train for experiences they might see when they enter a real healthcare facility.

It is why there is urgency to the work happening at the center.

When you schedule an appointment with your doctor or need immediate care at a hospital, you expect highly training healthcare workers to respond.

Concerning new data shows there are growing number of vacancies in necessary frontline healthcare jobs.

The National Center for Health Workforce Analysis (NCHWA) helps public and private organizations understand how changes in population will affect future workforce demands.

Its spring projections show, national nursing shortages are projected until 2036 with Michigan expected to be one of the hardest hit states.

Another report from the American Society of Radiologic Technologists showed the shortage of medical imaging professionals is at the highest level in at least 20 years.

Soon, the students training at the Dwyer Healthcare Simulation Center will be working in area hospitals and healthcare facilities.

“So, at the hospitals you do a little bit of everything, you can be in the ER one day and the next day you can be in fluoroscopy, and then the next day you can be in just general x-ray. I like that I can do a little bit of everything and I don’t have to specialize in just one area,” says Toth about why she is interested in radiology.

As one of 150 future healthcare workers and current IU South Bend students that will use the center this school year, what Toth is learning will prepare her for what happens next.